Basically Oracle has changed its licensing regime to run its software in Amazon Web Services and this has doubled the cost.

Previously Oracle recognised that Amazon’s virtual CPUs were a single thread of a core that ran two threads and counted each virtual CPU as half a core.

The new cloud policy say that an Amazon’s virtual CPU is now a full core if hyperthreading is not enabled. So, a punter renting two Amazon virtual CPUS therefore needs to pay for both, effectively doubling the number of Oracle licences required the software inside Amazon.

The new policy adds: “When counting Oracle Processor license requirements in Authorised Cloud Environments, the Oracle Processor Core Factor Table is not applicable.” That table makes Xeon cores count as half a licence, and therefore making the table inapplicable to the cloud doubles the licence count required.

The whole mess was spotted by Tim Hall and makes Amazon and Azure equal in Oracle's eyes.

The thought is that this is all a cunning plan to make Oracle's own cloud look cheaper. Oracle has no love for Amazon and even named it as public enemy number one in the cloud, claiming its own cloud will be cheaper and faster than the Amazon. That might be the case even if Oracle has had to jack up its own prices to make it so.

Of course the whole thing could backfire incredibly.  It might just be that people think, why am I spending so much money on my Oracle licensing, maybe it is time that I look at something else?